Music Review | Hello By Hedley

Lately it seems like everyone wants to say Hello and this time it’s not Adele or your friend on the other end it’s Hedley’s new album! Hello is hands down the best Canadian release this year.

To any Canadian Hedley is arguably a part of their lives, they’ve been the soundtrack to their first night out, their first road trip and probably the soundtrack to other inappropriate moments of their lives! Hedley is a band that have somehow managed to make teenagers and adults fall in love with them which is an undeniably tough thing to do in this day and age.

The band has been thought of as one of the most successful bands to come out of Canada in years and have achieved an unbelievable amount of things at such a young age such as over 3.5 million singles sold, 11 MuchMusic Video Awards and 2 JUNOs to boot.

Hedley who are known to many for their great slow ballads are also a favourite when it comes to radio friendly party hits, which in our eyes makes them essentially the perfect modern day band. With a perfect recipe this band has created a tremendously loyal following over the years and so releasing their new album Hello was definitely something they wanted to be proud of and something that fans will enjoy even years from now.

Hello is an album filled with energetic tracks that have some very slick cool modern production tricks such as Man Killer with cut up vocals in the background (as recently heard on Justin Bieber’s recent songs). The album screams “We Are Hedley” to us and that’s one of the best things after hearing fantastic singles from the band that didn’t include as much of their classic Hedley sound and attitude.

These guys aren’t scared of trying anything new and speaking their minds and that’s something very freeing when you listen to the album. Songs like their recent single Hello have a heavy rock almost punk like swagger while remaining commercial and there is something that just feels good about being able to count on a band to not just blindly follow current trends but to stay true to themselves as a band and who they are currently.

Quit, Very First Time, Alive and Lose Control could make anyone having the worst day possible want to dance in the middle of the street (as cheesy as this might sound). We digress, these tracks are uncontrollably catchy. Knife brings us back to basics with Hedley and Jacob absolutely stuns during his vocal delivery in this song and perfectly demonstrates why we also love the slower songs by Hedley so much. Can’t Slow Down has a chilled vibe despite its lyrical content and is a stand out track on the album production wise for being so highly produced, without seem to be too try hard.

Hello is a strong contender for being Canada’s best pop album of this year and there will be a handful of singles for the band to choose from depending on what direction they want to go next, which is of course a very good position for them to be in. Hello will definitely become a fan favourite and although we love classic Hedley tracks these new ones will make you want to hit their gig the next time they’re in town. Of that we have no doubt.